{"id":1633,"date":"2016-01-24T22:20:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T06:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=1633"},"modified":"2016-01-24T22:20:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T06:20:56","slug":"back-where-she-belongs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2016\/01\/24\/back-where-she-belongs\/","title":{"rendered":"Back where she belongs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Onto far more important news &#8211; the <em>Divine Miss M <\/em>is headed back to <em>Broadway<\/em>.\u00a0 In a move that surprised no one, it was announced that <strong>Bette Midler <\/strong>would headline a revival of <strong><em>Hello, Dolly!<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The idea actually goes back over two decades.\u00a0 In 1993, Bette scored a major success with her made-for-TV version of <strong><em>Gypsy<\/em><\/strong> (Bette-1, Babs-0).\u00a0 Immediately, studio execs asked her to follow it up with either <strong><em>Mame<\/em><\/strong> or <strong><em>Hello, Dolly!<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 &#8220;What am I gonna do &#8211; remake every classic <em>Broadway <\/em>musical?&#8221;, she was rumored to retort.\u00a0 As I previously told you, the idea of doing a musical onstage heated up when she returned to <em>Broadway <\/em>playing superagent, <strong>Sue Mengers<\/strong>.\u00a0 When she seriously considered doing <em>Dolly<\/em> and <em>Mame<\/em>, she did her due diligence.\u00a0 She checked out <em>YouTube <\/em>clips online and went to the <em>NY Public Library for the Performing Arts <\/em>to see whatever footage was available.\u00a0 She met with <strong>Jerry Herman<\/strong>.\u00a0 As she narrowed her focus on <em>Dolly<\/em>, she even reviewed the director&#8217;s notes from the original production.\u00a0 That clinched it for her.\u00a0 Plus, there was the timing: this revival won&#8217;t happen until 2017 &#8211; 50 years after her first <em>Broadway <\/em>appearance in <strong><em>Fiddler on the Roof<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Although she will be 71 years old when the show opens, that will not make her the oldest <em>Dolly<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Carol Channing <\/strong>did the last <em>Broadway <\/em>revival when she was 74!<\/p>\n<p>What I&#8217;m looking forward to even more is who will replace Bette when she (inevitably) leaves the show.\u00a0 When Channing left the original production, a veritable cavalcade of legendary ladies filled her shoes &#8211; ladies like <strong>Ginger Rogers<\/strong>, <strong>Martha Raye<\/strong>, <strong>Betty Grable<\/strong>, <strong>Phyllis Diller<\/strong>, and closing the show, <strong>Ethel Merman <\/strong>(who turned down the opportunity to create the role).\u00a0 Then, of course, there&#8217;s <strong>Pearl Bailey<\/strong>, who starred in the all-black version of the musical.\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if we get limited runs by <strong>Bernadette Peters<\/strong>, <strong>Patti LuPone<\/strong>, <strong>Liza Minnelli<\/strong>, and eventually, <strong>Audra McDonald<\/strong>!\u00a0 What about an Asian <em>Dolly<\/em>?\u00a0 Or a Latina <em>Dolly<\/em>.\u00a0 Or what about <strong>Dolly Parton <\/strong>as <em>Dolly<\/em>?\u00a0 Oh, the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Onto far more important news &#8211; the Divine Miss M is headed back to Broadway.\u00a0 In a move that surprised no one, it was announced that Bette Midler would headline a revival of Hello, Dolly!.\u00a0 The idea actually goes back over two decades.\u00a0 In 1993, Bette scored a major success with her made-for-TV version of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}